[HN Gopher] Instacart to cut 1,900 jobs, including its only unio...
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Instacart to cut 1,900 jobs, including its only union roles
Author : Jerry2
Score : 142 points
Date : 2021-01-21 19:23 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| thismodernlife wrote:
| I don't know much about Instacart as I live in Scotland but what
| they have done (Andrew Kane in particular) for the Ruby on Rails
| community through their open source is incredible. Kudos.
| jherdman wrote:
| I wasn't aware they had done anything. Do you have an article
| on the matter?
| thismodernlife wrote:
| Check out their GitHub
|
| https://github.com/instacart
| sct202 wrote:
| tldr; Instacart is shifting work to the grocery store's employees
| to pick and pack grocery orders instead of having Instacart
| employees do it.
|
| FWIW, the union referenced is at a Marianos, and Marianos (and
| all Kroger owned groceries) are unionized already. So the work is
| shifting from one union to another union.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _Instacart Inc. is cutting about 1,900 employees' jobs ... as the
| company seeks to boost its ranks of contract workers._
|
| It's important to note that "employees", in the US, are entitled
| to benefits [0] that "contractors" aren't. As more and more
| employers try to glorify the gig economy or fire employees in
| favor of contractors, it is more important than ever to make sure
| that critical benefits, especially affordable health coverage,
| are uncoupled from employment status.
|
| 0 - https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-
| finance/12091...
| worik wrote:
| It should be that if:
|
| * All your work is for one firm
|
| * You use their tools and/or premises to do the work
|
| * You have no realistic opportunity to work some where else -
| either a restriction in your contract or due to the hours that
| you work
|
| Then no matter what it says on your contract you are a
| employee.
|
| That used to be the law in Aotearoa for everybody. But when
| Peter Jackson turned rouge they changed the law, personally for
| him and Warner Brothers, to take those rights from people
| working on films. And computer games.
|
| https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/nz-government-changes...
|
| Treating people as interchangeable parts, like machines, is
| simply evil.
| snarf21 wrote:
| You missed the ability to negotiate the price of your work
| and not face consequences for not taking jobs that pay less.
| JohnGB wrote:
| That is essentially how it works in many European countries,
| but even stricter. In the Netherlands for example, if 70%+ of
| your work is for a single employer and the number of hours is
| above some reasonable threshold, then you're an employee.
| klmadfejno wrote:
| There was a time when janitors were employees. They're not
| INDEPENDENT contractors, but they're still filling a much
| shittier niche than in decades prior. Mostly we just need
| labor protection laws in general and non-employer provided
| health care I'd say.
| raylad wrote:
| One effect of your 3rd point is that companies decide to
| reduce the number of hours they offer to employees to keep
| them just under whatever threshold is created.
|
| This happened in NYC with adjunct professors years ago,
| according to one of my friends who was working as one. If
| they wanted to avoid paying benefits they had to reduce the
| number of hours per semester, and it became uneconomical to
| keep doing the job for him since the amount of preparation
| was almost the same but the pay was much reduced.
| clairity wrote:
| that's why functions in any public policy should be
| continuous to remove obvious points of stress and leverage
| used for gaming the system. federal income tax is this way,
| even as the derivative function, tax rate, is discontinous
| (bracketed).
| Pet_Ant wrote:
| Wouldn't a simple fix be to say that if you have two part
| time positions at the same time for the same skill set you
| must merge them into a single full time one.
|
| Sure, it's heavy handed, but if they are gonna play games
| we can't leave things to trust and common sense.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| What do you mean by "merge" them? Have two employees
| (more accurately, 4 part-time 29.5-hour employees doing
| the work of 3 full-time 40-hour employees) share
| benefits: "You get health insurance this month and I get
| it next month, you can contribute to your 401k this month
| and I can next month" kind of thing? Or prohibit you from
| hiring more than 3 'unnecessary' part-time employees?
|
| I'm abundantly familiar with the sort of antics that are
| involved. For another example, my wife used to work in
| childcare. To cover 8 classrooms Monday to Friday from
| 7:30 to 5:30 with at least one lead and one aide, plus
| two floaters (900 hours per week) they employed
| approximately 36 part-time workers (several were high
| school/college study programs working 16 or 24 hours per
| week) and no full-time workers. You're suggesting that
| they should be mandated to instead hire 24 full-time
| workers and pay benefits?
|
| In actuality, every teacher and aide except the owners
| used to be mandated to work no more than 29.5 hours per
| week. You often had short stints of working from after
| nap time at 2pm to 5:30pm just so that you could make
| hours (which sucked when she was driving 30 minutes at
| 16mpg to make $10.75/hour with gas at $4/gallon). Some
| people got scheduled mornings, some got afternoons, but
| you didn't dare come in for a full day because then
| they'd have to give benefits. It was amazing how paranoid
| and irate the front office would get at 5:31pm when
| couple parents were late for pick-up and they had to keep
| staff around for more than their scheduled hours. If
| anyone hit more than 30 hours, they'd shuffle the
| schedule so they were no longer working afternoon shifts
| that might go long, and this was all complicated by
| frequently requested shift trades among the underpaid and
| underemployed people involved; you weren't allowed to
| cover for anyone if you'd gone over 30 hours in any of
| the previous 4 weeks. And it was a nightmare for anyone
| who tried to have a second job that might need you
| between 7:30 and 5:30, you wouldn't know for sure until
| Friday night what you'd be asked to work Monday morning.
| And they weren't just turning screws in a factory, this
| also had negative effects on the kids they were teaching
| when they'd wake up from nap time to find a relative
| stranger watching them.
|
| Given the demographic, they much preferred shuffling
| around colorful magnets on a calendar to spreadsheets or
| databases, and there was a lot of shuffling indeed. But
| I'd hate to imagine what it would be like to code an
| automated time clock for that byzantine system...it would
| be generous to call it a game.
| ghufran_syed wrote:
| how exactly would you "merge" them?
| Pet_Ant wrote:
| Bundle the hours and responsibilities into a single full-
| time position.
|
| I mean if you have first-year "Introduction to
| Algorithms" as a PT, and another PT "Introduction to
| NetWorking" then they can easily be taught by a single
| person. Create an FT where the job is to teach both.
| lacker wrote:
| What I have seen is jobs limited to weird amounts like 29
| hours a week. You can't really combine two of those into
| one 58-hour-a-week position.
| 0xfaded wrote:
| This was done in the UK and parts of Europe basically to
| appease the taxman.
|
| See https://www.netlawman.co.uk/ia/ir35
|
| The consequence, as partially intended, is that companies are
| hesitant to work with individual contractors. The problem is
| that if you want to start a consultancy, you're going to have
| a fun time finding your first client.
|
| The correct solution is to decouple employment from
| taxation/benefits/pension/health-care/everything.
| stevesearer wrote:
| We employ people that work less than 5 hours/week who get to
| make their own schedule and work from their homes. Even
| though all of them have other jobs and use it as a small side
| hustle, we still classify them as employees.
|
| Many people choose to forget that there is such a thing as a
| part-time employee.
| amanzi wrote:
| I think your third point is key. For the first two points I
| believe that you can still be a contractor if you are
| choosing to do all your work for one firm and you're using
| their tools and premises to do the work.
| lacker wrote:
| _You have no realistic opportunity to work some where else -
| either a restriction in your contract or due to the hours
| that you work_
|
| I think this part would need to be more specific. A while ago
| I worked as a low level employee at the Gap in Boston, and
| the rules were that nobody could work more than 29 hours per
| week so that nobody was categorized as full time, but you
| also had to be available whenever you were scheduled.
| However, many people had two jobs, despite this restriction.
| They would be asking other employees to swap shifts every
| week and sometimes failing but usually making it work.
| Nowadays, with Uber, it's a lot easier to fill in an extra 15
| hours a week that you'd like to work. So who could really
| claim to have "no realistic opportunity to work somewhere
| else" if any odd hours could be filled as an Uber driver or
| similar gig worker?
|
| It's important to recognize that the different ways of
| scheduling part time work are really different. 20 hours a
| week that is mandated with three days notice by your employer
| really sucks. 20 hours a week that you choose with the Uber
| app is far better.
| a_wild_dandan wrote:
| Yeah, how do we get more specific here? I had a few ideas,
| but they all seemed similarly nebulous or else might create
| suspicious discontinuities. [1]
|
| I wonder if categorizing contractors v. employees is like
| recognizing porn. "I know it when I see it" says Justice
| Stewart.
|
| 1. https://danluu.com/discontinuities/
| Sparkyte wrote:
| No one listened when I said Prop 22 is going to backfire hard.
| Bet the 1900 jobs are in California alone.
| ppeetteerr wrote:
| There are advantages in countries with socialized healthcare to
| be an independent contractor (e.g. Canada). In the US, not so
| much.
| e40 wrote:
| ... and if any of these contractors are in CA, then they (edit
| to add this: Instacart) will likely be sued by the EDD. The EDD
| would view this as a blatant way to get out of paying benefits
| (which it does appear to be).
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| It isn't at all though if you read the article. They are
| instead partnering with stores to have the store employees
| fill orders from Instacart instead of Instacart's employee
| "shoppers."
|
| The model of Instacart has evolved, it went from any shopper
| going into any store and getting you what you need to having
| the stores actually be in on it and using Instacart as an
| extension to increase demand and orders (think how DD
| partners with restaurants for delivery vs. the old Postmates
| model where they could just send someone in to order your
| food for you)
| s3r3nity wrote:
| I'm not sure why the onus is on the business here, rather than
| the individual: when deciding to be a "contractor" vs.
| "employee," I should & do take those risks and decisions into
| account, and weigh the trade-offs.
|
| You want 401k match and other nice benefits? Then become a
| full-time employee somewhere. You like more flexibility and
| independence, given the trade-offs? Then go with independent
| contracting.
| Finnucane wrote:
| The whole point of the sharecropper economy is to make it so
| a lot of people don't really have much choice.
| pfooti wrote:
| Because, given the opportunity and no regulation, companies
| will always push to make all employees contractors.
| Independent contractors represent a significantly lower
| liability on the balance sheets. Except that those lower
| liabilities are just externalizing the cost of employment to
| other systems (health and unemployment insurance, etc). If we
| don't regulate corporations, they will just race to the
| bottom in how they treat labor.
| s3r3nity wrote:
| I'll grant that I agree this is probably true for low-
| skilled labor where supply is high and interchangeable.
|
| I don't think this is the case for low-supply, high-skill
| labor (ex: doctors, engineers, etc.) as well as certain
| low-supply trades (HVAC, welders, etc.) Then bargaining
| power can properly counteract any such forces.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| Acting is certainly a high-skill profession, but even the
| in-demand ones are members of the Screen Actors Guild.
| They know why it's a good idea.
| worik wrote:
| "low-supply, high-skill labor (ex: doctors, engineers,
| etc.)"
|
| Doctors, I know, have powerful unions and associations.
| Very, very, powerful.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| This is absolutely true for engineers. While I did have
| employer provided healthcare, I was hired as a contract
| worker at Google X on their flagship robotics research
| project as a mechatronics prototype engineer and later a
| test engineer. I worked for two years alongside full time
| employees on the same exact things as full time
| employees. But they got stock, parties, and other special
| treats that contractors did not. Almost 50% of the team -
| I think the legal limit - were contractor roles.
|
| While I do appreciate that from their perspective it
| makes sense, it is also true that if we don't fight to
| protect workers, all jobs will go this way. That's
| actually why what an up-thread comment said is a great
| idea. If we decouple important things like healthcare
| from employment, then everyone gets important quality of
| life care without employers having to restrict benefits.
| If we do not fight for ourselves, we will end up in a
| situation where most people cannot access the basic
| necessities of life. Already in the US millions of
| Americans are without healthcare.
| makoz wrote:
| What do you think about sports leagues and the fact that
| the major ones in US have unions for their players? (low
| supply, high demand)
| glitchc wrote:
| The AMA is a union in all but name [1] and quite powerful
| [2]:
|
| _By money spent, the AMA is the nation's third largest
| lobbying organization of the last 20 years, behind only
| the US Chamber of Commerce and the National Association
| of Realtors._ [1]
|
| [1]
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoodman/2014/09/03/the-
| doct...
|
| [2] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/06
| /why-we...
| esoterica wrote:
| What does lobbying have to do with whether or not an
| organization is a union? The Chamber of Commerce
| obviously isn't a union.
| bazooka_penguin wrote:
| American software engineers should form a special
| interest group. Not sure why so many people are resistant
| to the idea. Lobbies too. Its strange that an otherwise
| left leaning demographic acts virtually conservative when
| it really counts towards their labor
|
| Edit for word choice
| splistud wrote:
| Perhaps. But also, given the regulation, you remove
| opportunity for those that are looking for the type of
| employment you discredit from accepting it from employers
| that want to offer it. I very much appreciate the ability
| to step into the gig economy when I need to. I assume you
| mean well, but I wish you and other's who agree with you
| would kindly butt out and let me make my own decisions.
| SwiftyBug wrote:
| If only it was a matter of choice rather than a very planned
| uberization of the workforce.
| splistud wrote:
| If only you could come reasonably close to proving that.
|
| Let's say you were correct. Want to stop it? Regulation is
| just a wall with holes. The only way to stop it is to
| reduce the labor force.
|
| If this is actually a plan, it's conception requires that
| the labor force is going to expand rapidly. In a tighter
| labor market, companies are much better off locking up
| labor rather than nickel and diming costs. So any said evil
| plan is an add-on to opening the gates to immigration, both
| legal and illegal.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| The point is that companies are eliminating full-time
| employment roles for employees and replacing them with roles
| for contractors. That means there are less full-time
| employment opportunities for W-2 employees, and an increasing
| amount of roles for 1099 contractors.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Speaking as a person who intentionally chooses to be a
| contractor, and refuses offers of permanent employment
| because I prefer to be a contractor, I respectfully disagree.
| I have these options because being a computer programmer
| (lately) gives me options. In any occupation where it is a
| "buyer's market", the employee has no such option.
|
| Now, whether things like healthcare and retirement should be
| linked to employment in the first place, is a real and valid
| question. But currently it is, and the distinction between
| "employee" and "contractor" seems bogus in a lot of cases.
| willcipriano wrote:
| When you say it gives you more flexibility do you mind if I
| ask what do you mean?
|
| I'm in the US and generally my employment has been at will,
| either of us are free to end the arrangement at any time.
| Having a specific date where that arrangement ends doesn't
| seem to be more flexible, if I wanted to leave in a month I
| would just give my notice and leave.
|
| I'm in the same position as you career wise and I often get
| offers to join contract roles and they are very unappealing
| to me. When I do the math on the benefits I'd lose out on
| and the additional taxes, rarely are these offers
| competitive let alone when I factor in the greater
| volatility inherent in the arrangement and the lack of
| unemployment benefits. Also in my experience the recruiters
| pushing the contract roles are the most desperate and
| aggressive, that doesn't lead me to believe these roles are
| all that high quality.
| lacker wrote:
| Maybe one month you want to work 40 hours a week, the
| next you want to work 20 hours a week, the next you want
| to work 40 again. That's quite hard to arrange with a
| traditional job, but often possible with contract work.
| Especially when you work somewhere that has a few
| contractors doing similar stuff and you can just arrange
| amounts of work between you and your peers.
| nicbou wrote:
| I'm not OP, and I live in a different country, but my
| answer is unlimited vacation between contracts. Software
| development contracts cover my yearly expenses in 3
| months. I have the rest of the year to myself if I want
| to.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| I just transitioned to contract based. The pay is
| significantly higher than if I was a salaried employee.
| In addition all of my salary comes to me, pre tax. This
| allows me greater flexibility regarding what I do with my
| $. For example I will use all income in the first half of
| the year to pay off all of my debt (2 cars, credit cards
| and money down for a house refinance). The second half of
| the year I will save for taxes and at that stage my
| overall monthly bills are massively lower. I get my
| health insurance via my wife who is salaried. In addition
| it allows me to write off a lot of things for taxes.
| Getting paid through my company gives a lot of tax
| benefits.
|
| The contract is for a year, with the option to extend.
| The job I just left was salaried but actively laying
| people off. So while both positions have risk, the
| contracted one provides a much higher income and
| flexibility to use it as I see fit. Plus any work I do on
| the weekend for the contract position is paid, as a
| salaried employee its not.
| mjcohen wrote:
| Key point: "I get my health insurance via my wife who is
| salaried."
|
| What if you had to provide your own health insurance?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Would you mind sharing why you prefer to be a contractor?
| true_religion wrote:
| Because they don't give you that flexibility. They require a
| high number of working hours to stay in the system, and
| require you to work peak hours anyways.
|
| No one really gains as a contractor working 39 hours a week
| without benefits.
| vladojsem wrote:
| i am really curious about the labor market in the few months.
| especially here in eu, the companies were holding their
| employees due to state subventions. that can end up badly when
| it is over.
| theinverseidea wrote:
| I always get a kick when businesses do exactly what the numbers
| said they would do and other people act surprised.
| jasonshaev wrote:
| To be fair, there were only TEN unionized employees at
| Instacart who were let go (out of 1900 jobs cut). With such a
| small percentage of the workforce unionized, it's highly
| unlikely those employees enjoyed any additional bargaining
| power or job security that could result from having a
| significant fraction of the workforce unionized.
|
| With such a small fraction I don't think you can draw
| conclusions in either direction.
|
| [edit] In other words: these employees would have lost their
| job regardless of their union status [/edit]
| tyingq wrote:
| _" In other words: these employees would have lost their job
| regardless of their union status"_
|
| 10 unionized employees out of thousands isn't enough critical
| mass to count as a union for the things that matter. The
| power is in numbers.
| ardy42 wrote:
| > 10 unionized employees out of thousands isn't enough
| critical mass to count as a union for the things that
| matter. The power is in numbers.
|
| That may be so, but laying off those 10 could be a strategy
| to kill the union in the crib by keeping the number from
| ever getting to the thousands. Employees faced with future
| unionization votes may vote against the union _because they
| 're afraid management will find a way to lay them all off
| if they vote for it_, before they're strong enough to
| resist.
| jasonshaev wrote:
| I agree (hence my original statement: "With such a small
| percentage of the workforce unionized, it's highly unlikely
| those employees enjoyed any additional bargaining power or
| job security that could result from having a significant
| fraction of the workforce unionized. With such a small
| fraction I don't think you can draw conclusions in either
| direction.")
|
| However I then, uh, went on to draw a conclusion anyway in
| contradiction of my own statement saying we shouldn't draw
| conclusions because of the sample size. Methinks it's time
| for more coffee :).
| [deleted]
| theinverseidea wrote:
| Oh I was referring to the unions and the other job losses as
| well -- I cant imagine the new federal minimum wage makes it
| easier to employ an army of low wage workers who can come and
| go at will.
| moate wrote:
| >>In other words: these employees would have lost their job
| regardless of their union status
|
| IDK that we can make that assumption. Instacart management
| has made themselves out to be anti-unionization (a common
| view by management in the US). If you're an anti-union
| manager, and you're about to make a massive, 2,000 person
| layoff declaration, you're going to make sure the unionized
| group of 10 people is on that list. Can't let that sort of
| thought spread to other locations, and this serves as a good
| example to those trying to organize in the future. It's easy
| to avoid a NLRB loss if you bust the union as part of a
| larger layoff.
|
| The only thing that would have been telling is if they had
| announced a huge layoff and NOT taken out the union shop.
| jasonshaev wrote:
| You're right -- my last statement was a bit too much of a
| leap. In this case I wonder if it would have even mattered
| if a significant percentage of the workforce was unionized.
| moate wrote:
| It might have. Unions are political forces. You get a few
| thousand people calling and screaming at politicians and
| news outlets to create a negative stink about it, maybe
| the company looks at other ways to make themselves more
| financially healthy. I'm not saying it would, just that
| it could. That's a big part of the appeal of a union,
| having a group of people with diverse backgrounds and
| experiences able to bring those backgrounds to the table
| to help in fights against management.
| xrd wrote:
| From what I understand from these comments, it sounds like
| Instacart is going to leverage labor at union staffed stores,
| like Kroger, to fulfill on its business opportunities.
|
| This seems like a clever form of arbitrage, or shall we call it,
| disruption?
|
| Is this the new frontier (or perhaps I'm just late to the game in
| understanding it) where larger online businesses (like Amazon)
| shift away from full time employment (with the costs associated
| with it) and let some other "local" or "brick and mortar" legacy
| businesses try to keep those employees with living wages and
| healthcare employed while those same "frenemies" (purchasing from
| them, but also competing with them) avoid those costs?
|
| I spoke to an accountant friend the other day who works for a
| local independent grocery store. They are really trying to keep
| their low wage workers on payroll, despite having revenues cut in
| half because of COVID. Everyone is shopping at Amazon+WholeFoods.
| If those workers lose their jobs, will they be homeless? I don't
| think consumers care or think about them, even though they might
| be their neighbors.
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| Less arbitrage and more benefit to Instacart/the stores.
|
| Who probably knows a store better: random Instacart shopper or
| employee of the store?
|
| In the end, Instacart gets faster fulfillment and more accurate
| fulfillment for a price (whatever cut Kroger etc. take to do
| this). The stores get direct access to the order data and can
| then stock their stores better, capture the extra demand, and
| keep their employees engaged in revenue generating work
| (Instacart probably pays the store for this service of in-house
| shopping)
| adamcstephens wrote:
| Not all positions at Kroger are unionized.
|
| Amazon already outsources like this for last mile deliveries.
| windthrown wrote:
| Keep in mind that after Prop 22 in California, some grocery
| chains (Vons, Albertsons) are replacing their employees with
| contractors:
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/01/06/vons-albe...
| [deleted]
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| Dumb question: is this in any way related to California
| Proposition 22?
| bbatsell wrote:
| It is entirely due to Prop 22.
| s3r3nity wrote:
| The article loosely hints at this context, but provides no
| evidence either way.
|
| Looking at Instacart revenue / margin numbers, they hit
| profitability _for the first time ever_ in April 2020 alongside
| the COVID pandemic. Further, margins are CRAZY THIN - meaning
| maintaining profitability is really difficult in an environment
| of increasing competition from Uber / Google, among others.
| (Ex: Uber bought Postmates, as the latter had similar margin
| difficulties.)
|
| My read is that this type of move was planned as an option for
| Instacart for a while, and Prop 22 maybe pushed up the timeline
| slightly.
|
| EDIT: not sure why I'm getting downvoted. I know the article
| tries to build this narrative as much as possible (without even
| mentioning Prop 22) but then doesn't even provide the financial
| details that show that Instacart has really tight margins - and
| if they're trying to IPO, at this rate they're going to stumble
| there.
| huac wrote:
| The article doesnt mention Prop 22 by name but the last
| paragraph is very clearly about Prop 22
|
| > San Francisco-based Instacart and other gig companies
| including Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. last year
| bankrolled a successful $200 million campaign to pass a
| California ballot measure exempting them from a state law
| declaring workers were employees if they did work in the
| "usual course" of their bosses' business. Emboldened by that
| victory, the companies are pushing for similar changes
| elsewhere that would make it easier to claim workers are
| contractors.
| s3r3nity wrote:
| Completely agree, but I would argue that the article is a
| bit deceptive in that it's trying to build that context
| without any evidence or data that this is the driver for
| Instacart's move.
|
| correlation <> causation, etc. etc.
| kirillzubovsky wrote:
| At the end of the day, the people will get hired back by somebody
| who needs their groceries delivered. Meanwhile, this makes Insta
| more of a software company, and lets the stores deal with hiring.
|
| The market is going to love this because it will de-risk
| Instacart. Grocery stores should love this because they will be
| able to increase utilization of their employees. And of course
| employees, despite the popular narrative, will actually gain more
| power because they would have more localized work, and less
| competition. It's a win-win-win.
| breck wrote:
| I would love to live in a world where we do away with the term
| "employee".
|
| Where people were just part of a team.
|
| Where your boss didn't have to be concerned with which doctor you
| went to.
|
| Where you could work for $5 an hour for a cause you believed in,
| and not have to worry about making ends meet.
|
| Some day we need to #RefactorAmerica.
| hising wrote:
| Read about them earlier today, they are getting ready for IPO.
| Can't help to think news like this has to do with building a
| better offer. The market likes these kind of news.
| petra wrote:
| The future of grocery pickup delivery is clearly automated -
| automated warehouse , and as we start seeing , automated
| delivery robots.
|
| What value does Instacart offer in the world ? Why would people
| want to buy their stock ?
| halfdan wrote:
| Look, we're profitable after firing half our workforce!!!
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _The market likes these kind of news._
|
| When someone points to a rising stock market as possible
| evidence of a strong economy, just keep in mind that the market
| likes it when a company fires a ton of employees.
| vmception wrote:
| Jobs for the sake of bragging about how many people are
| employed is just as useless.
|
| Do what helps you make revenue, don't do what doesn't.
|
| I am a fan of one-off utility of people, I think of
| everything like a commissioned trip to a new continent. Take
| risk, get the gold, return, distribute payments, disband.
| Reach out again if there is a similar project.
|
| Keeping people around for no reason is folly and merely
| trendy.
| vkou wrote:
| > Jobs for the sake of bragging about how many people are
| employed is just as useless.
|
| They aren't useless in a society where the only means of
| survival is having a job.
|
| In fact, in a society where the only means of survival is
| having a job, part of the social contract is 'everyone
| should be able to get a job'. Otherwise, you may get to
| meet a lot of angry, desperate people, with nothing to
| lose.
| vmception wrote:
| Yeah we should fix that and is a separate issue.
|
| Vilifying a corporation that suddenly remembered they
| have a lot of random people don't help generate revenue
| is odd. Similarly, assuming distress of a corporation
| when they remember to cut its workforce is just as odd.
| Its probably an _accurate_ assumption, it just doesn 't
| have to be and it would make more sense for corporations
| to be more nimble.
| kansface wrote:
| Jobs aren't useless, but a job can produce net negative
| value. Consider other politically mandated jobs like gas
| station attendants in Oregon. These sorts of jobs (and
| the government guaranteeing a job for everyone) are
| downright dystopian - and further still, I can't imagine
| the path to a healthy society.
| vkou wrote:
| A lot of jobs produce net negative value, but the guy who
| pumps my gas, or the Wal-Mart greeter isn't at the front
| of that list. The guy who cold-calls me with
| telemarketing crap would be, though.
|
| Everyone having an opportunity for employment is not
| dystopia. A real dystopia is when you have no good social
| safety net, but also have a large, unemployed underclass,
| which has no ability to make a living for themselves.
| triceratops wrote:
| > I think of everything like a commissioned trip to a new
| continent
|
| It's a great model for the exploration business (or fields
| similar to it, such as construction projects, entertainment
| production and so on). It's not applicable to every single
| industry though.
| vmception wrote:
| I think of all software projects like this.
|
| I view the Instagram purchase as the most correct
| example. 30 employees and bought out for 1 billion.
|
| I know so many investors and founders that are shy of
| certain dollar figures solely because there aren't like
| 1000 people involved or some other arbitrary number of
| employees or personnel. Compared to the most accurate
| question "can I make a return on this amount of money,
| and what are those probabilities".
|
| Obviously there also are founders and investors that do
| ask the most accurate question, and they grow in number.
|
| It does aggravate me to see this other slower moving
| culture with irrelevant perceptions of reality based on
| how many employees a company has. It seems rooted in a
| prosperity philosophy, where wealth accumulation is
| granted by compliance with morality, and high employment
| numbers satisfy that morality. And its like, wow how many
| times does that have to be disproven to those people,
| aren't they adults?
| aklemm wrote:
| While I like and use Instacart, the model is wrong. I am paying
| too much for a slightly unreliable service and the employees
| aren't getting paid enough. The stores should provide the
| shoppers, delivery should be a separate service, and the cost
| should be about a $15-30 premium for a large grocery order (15+
| minutes of order picking + delivery similar to a cab ride). That
| leaves the ordering platform, which might be a nice niche for
| Instacart to provide across multiple stores.
|
| Anyway, this has been a tough business all the way back to
| Webvan!
| ketamine__ wrote:
| Wouldn't Kroger save money by doing direct delivery? Groceries
| could be shipped direct from the distribution center.
| mrlala wrote:
| Having used instacart (through Costco) and walmart grocery
| delivery almost exclusively for the past 10 months.. I'm more
| amazed at how cheap it is, and I'm a bit worried that employees
| are not getting paid enough.
|
| Costco is probably the more 'reasonable' one. They mark up the
| products probably 5-10%. So this one I feel that the delivery
| people are probably being paid ok.. although my nearest costco
| is 16 miles away (about 25min).. so it kind of feels like a
| steal to be able to get delivery from them for what feels like
| not a whole lot more.
|
| Walmart is closer, but there are no markups.. and I pay
| whatever $10/mo for free delivery from them. Order multiple
| times a month.
|
| I'm honestly not sure I'm going to go back to the stores as
| often even when things are normal.
| DGAP wrote:
| This is how it works in Texas at HEB and Central Market. It's
| about $10 to do curbside grocery pickup, more around $15-$30 I
| believe for delivery, which is done through Favor, a delivery
| subsidiary of HEB.
| boringg wrote:
| Agree with this. The premise is nice but the execution and
| shadiness of raising prices so you don't really know how much
| you are paying for the instacart premium feels bad.
|
| You'd think this business would be going through the roof
| during the pandemic. If it can't work now, how is it ever going
| to work?
| rtx wrote:
| Imagine if these unions start a competitor, it would be glorious
| and we can call it a co-operative.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Good luck raising money to start a co-op.
| tehjoker wrote:
| The main barrier I imagine is access to capital.
| pfooti wrote:
| that, and the instacart business model is only feasible with
| large VC infusions (so yeah access to capital) and via
| externalizing other costs of doing business (living wage,
| insurance, benefits) to the social safety net instead of
| providing such services to their labor.
| fermienrico wrote:
| I always hear progressive views about unionization which I agree
| with and they make sense. What are some of the disadvantages of
| unions?
|
| Edit: Before you hit that downvote button, can we not have a
| balanced discussion about pros and cons of Unionization? I am a
| progressive and a Democrat but I want to know both sides of the
| coin. For people saying this question is of bad faith, I am not
| really asking "What are the advantages of murder?" here,
| Unionization is a complex topic and it would be interesting to
| understand that it's not just companies exploiting employees, but
| there is a lot more to it than that.
| eeZah7Ux wrote:
| A lot of the answers describe problems that can exist in any
| human organization rather than being specific to unions. For
| example:
|
| - Prioritizing the organization survival or growth over the
| needs of those who should benefit from it. Ironically, this is
| the default of for-profit companies.
|
| - People at the top being corrupted, prioritizing personal gain
| over moral values
|
| - Becoming slow and bureaucratic after becoming big and/or old
| jawns wrote:
| Unions can be tremendously helpful when there is a wide
| disparity in bargaining power between employer and employee. In
| the late 19th and early 20th century, labor unions made
| tremendous strides in improving worker conditions and
| pay/benefits.
|
| Among the criticisms I've heard ...
|
| Sometimes market forces can get you adequate conditions and
| pay/benefits without the need for collective bargaining. For
| instance, software engineers tend to be well paid even without
| needing to unionize. So if you don't feel that you need a
| union, but you're forced to be in a union (and pay dues)
| against your will -- as happens in many industries -- you may
| feel those dues are taking money out of your pocket
| unnecessarily. In fact, the union leadership might actually be
| making decisions that benefit them or the members collectively
| but that don't benefit you individually.
| bombcar wrote:
| The union workers I know generally are annoyed to hate the
| union, both for the dues unceremoniously ripped and for
| "protecting lazy co-workers". It's usually held to grumbling
| but they always have an eye out to grab a higher-paying non-
| union job if one shows up.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _both for the dues unceremoniously ripped_
|
| I mean, yeah, you owe dues. How else should it work? When I
| was part of a union it amounted to 2 hours of wages per
| month, not exactly onerous.
| ars wrote:
| > I mean, yeah, you owe dues. How else should it work?
|
| It's a bigger problem in non Right to Work states, where
| you can be forced to join the union (and have dues taken
| from you).
|
| In places where joining the union for their benefits is
| voluntary I don't see the problem.
|
| There are also places where you don't have to join the
| union, but they still take some of the wages (at a lower
| rate than full members) for nebulous "benefits" the union
| offers. Those are especially contentious because not all
| the employee believe they get any benefits at all.
|
| The US should shift to the European model where multiple
| unions are available at each employer, and they compete
| with each other for membership. I believe joining a union
| is required there, they don't have any non-union jobs,
| but a European union is not the same as a US one.
| elefanten wrote:
| Counterexample: the nascent Google employees union is
| taking 1% of total comp.
|
| That's pretty ambitious when the employees are Googlers.
| sib wrote:
| >> itsoktocry 2 hours ago [-]
|
| >> When I was part of a union it amounted to 2 hours of
| wages per month, not exactly onerous. reply
|
| >> elefanten 2 hours ago [-]
|
| >> Counterexample: the nascent Google employees union is
| taking 1% of total comp.
|
| Not sure it's really a counterexample as there are - in
| theory - about 200 work hours per month, so 1% of comp is
| pretty much equivalent to 2 hours of wages per month.
| legerdemain wrote:
| Could unions be ad-supported? Maybe you put a TV monitor
| playing a continuous stream of ads in the employee break
| room. It's win-win.
| moate wrote:
| The union workers I know generally are pleased by their
| union, especially if they worked in their location prior to
| organization. They are able to remember and appreciate the
| difference between how management treated them before and
| after. Even my friends who worked as management in union-
| shops appreciated what the org was able to do for the
| people they supervised (even if it was frustrating during
| 2018 strikes to have to manage entire hotel restaurants
| short staffed).
|
| Out of curiosity, what field are your union friends in, and
| do you happen to know what union represents them?
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Statistically, white collar union workers have higher
| compensation[1], better benefits and more time off. They
| also report higher rates of life satisfaction[2].
|
| [1] https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/04/art2full.pdf
|
| [2]
| https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0160449X16643321
| whydoibother wrote:
| The lazy worker argument applies to any job. I work in a
| F500 and have 'lazy' coworkers. I can't just go to my
| manager and get them fired.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _For instance, software engineers tend to be well paid even
| without needing to unionize._
|
| Compensation for the majority of software engineers has not
| kept up with cost of living increases, inflation nor the
| amount of revenue they generate for their employers.
|
| Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm and
| eBay all colluded with one another[1] to keep tech worker
| compensation below their market rates.
|
| > _So if you don 't feel that you need a union, but you're
| forced to be in a union (and pay dues) against your will --
| as happens in many industries_
|
| No one is forced to work a union job. If your employer makes
| a decision that you don't like, you aren't forced to work for
| them, either. If a union makes a decision you don't like, you
| aren't forced to work for it.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
| Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
| jkingsbery wrote:
| > No one is forced to work a union job.
|
| This is technically true, but this is also an argument
| against unions. It's true that if you don't like that your
| company is unionized you can go work for a company that's
| not unionized, but it's also true that if you don't like
| that your company is not unionized you can go work for a
| company that is.
| ink_13 wrote:
| You are probably being downvoted because this is not really an
| appropriate venue for such a discussion. If you are genuinely
| curious, surely you have access to a search engine where you
| will get much more thorough discussion of both sides.
| bhupy wrote:
| Why isn't this an appropriate venue?
| [deleted]
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > What are some of the disadvantages of unions?
|
| Corruption. Over and over again, decade after decade.
| whydoibother wrote:
| So... the same as most corps?
| [deleted]
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _What are some of the disadvantages of unions?_
|
| As someone who spent a lot of time as a member of a once
| powerful Canadian Union, the downside is that you get what you
| get, losing individual bargaining ability. You have a vote, but
| majority rules, and overnight you could be working under terms
| and conditions you don't necessarily agree with. Promotions and
| internal transfers are handled by seniority. The collective
| trumps the individual. Nothing inherently wrong with that, but
| you can't please everyone.
| fat_pikachu wrote:
| It isn't uncommon to find yourself on the losing end of the
| union contract negotiation with little you can do about it. You
| give up your agency. The only things that matter are the
| interests of the existing majority which will often be
| prioritized at the expense of the minority (e.g. LIFO layoff
| practices).
|
| I made one tenth the salary as professor while teaching as an
| adjunct in grad school despite having a similar course load. My
| uncle's union negotiated lay-offs of his division over another
| one. A lot of us have stories like this that left a bad taste
| in our mouths about unionization. Corporations can also be
| guilty of favoritism but they aren't supposed to be on your
| side of the negotiating table.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| FIFO or LIFO?
| fat_pikachu wrote:
| LIFO. Thanks, corrected it.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Somebody's law (don't remember whose): Organizations tend to
| preserve the existence of the problem to which they are the
| solution. That is, unions often try to protect the _union 's_
| interest, not the _members_ interest.
| whalesalad wrote:
| Living in Detroit and knowing a lot of people who work in the
| auto industry I can tell you that for every ounce of goodness
| that comes from a union there is an equal and opposite ounce of
| badness. The shit that I hear people get away with is
| remarkable. And yet they continue to come to work day after day
| with seeming impunity, continuing to assemble vehicles, etc...
|
| I am personally anti-union because inevitably they become so
| large that they succumb to their own internal forces and become
| beurocratic and misguided.
| sojsurf wrote:
| Also from Detroit metro, and was coming here to say the same
| thing. I moved here from out of state and the more I talk to
| folks who work in the auto industry, the more I'm convinced
| that unions are a large obstacle to the revitalization of
| Detroit's auto industry.
|
| While they bring stability and job security to workers who
| are invested in excellence and quality, they also bring
| stability and job security to workers who have no desire to
| be productive. This is demotivational for anyone who needs to
| work with these employees and has an outsized effect on the
| organization. To quote a friend, "I love my work, but I can't
| get anything real done because I need sign-off from X, but he
| sits around all day, doesn't really work, and no one can fire
| him."
| whalesalad wrote:
| The whole "he just sits around - no one can fire him" is
| painfully true.
| tharne wrote:
| Unions tend to incentivize low performers and prevent companies
| from adapting to changing conditions.
|
| Since it's next to impossible to get fired from a union shop,
| lower performers and less ambitious tend to stick around
| because it's easy work and they can't really get fired. And
| because pay in union shops is often tied more to tenure than
| performance, your higher-performing workers tend to get
| resentful and leave, as they are not rewarded for their
| contributions.
|
| In terms of inflexibility, markets and conditions can change
| very quickly, which means people's roles and responsibilities
| need to change.
|
| Unions tend to (but as a rule to "have to") push back against
| this, even when the employer is offering re-training programs.
| Typically unions define what a "job" is and then fight to keep
| said jobs, which can prevent companies from making the changes
| they need to. Ironically, this often leads to more, not fewer
| job losses, since the company can't adapt. This is why many
| cities in the Northeast still have "typists" officially on
| their payroll. The union will fight to keep a person's job, _as
| it was defined the day they were hired_. You can get away with
| this sort of thing in government, up to a point. In the private
| sector it can gradually grind companies down, as it prevents
| them from making the necessary transformations the need to in
| order to succeed longer term.
| Grazester wrote:
| This is the idea of have of unions. NYC MTA is all union
| workers and when I hear stories (from a relative that works)
| of the kinds of things people get away with before being
| fired along with their ridiculous compensation, I can't
| easily shake my opinion of unions.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| This is a huge issue Volkswagen and other car companies are
| having. As they shift to electric cars the Unions are pushing
| back hard as it takes a fraction of the employees to
| manufacture electric cars.
| [deleted]
| draw_down wrote:
| Topic is Instacart layoffs not union debate
| eldavido wrote:
| Unions bring democracy to the workplace.
|
| Democracy ensures some modicum of fairness, but is slow,
| inefficient, and can lead to very bad outcomes when dealing
| with highly technical questions. There's probably a place for
| big, large-scale political questions (who should be president,
| should we stay in the EU) to be decided by direct democracy,
| but I wouldn't want that for trade or monetary policy.
|
| The big problem I see with democracy, in general, is that it's
| highly susceptible to special-interest takeover. When a small
| group stands to gain disproportionately from a particular
| outcome, they will lobbby--HARD--to get that outcome. Even when
| doing so might be so harmful to the overall system, that it
| collapses, even if they get what they want.
|
| The US analog is the SEIU/AFSCME organizing so hard that the
| entire government of a state, like Illinois, becomes beholden
| to what they want.
|
| How did AB5, the TNC bill, pass, when it was overwhelmingly not
| supported by drivers and the electorate didn't want it, either?
| Teamsters pushed their agenda. Hard.
|
| Unions will make no bones about running an employer,
| government, or other organization absolutely into the ground in
| the name of advocating for their members' interests. They do
| not care about taxpayers, customers, or any other constituency
| other than themselves and their members. And when it all falls
| apart, they'll just go to the next state/company/etc. and run
| the same playbook, over and over. It's very harmful. Some
| things need to be outside the reach of democracy/the masses.
| whydoibother wrote:
| Everything you said negative about them applies to
| corporations as well. Not sure why you single unions out on
| this.
| eldavido wrote:
| Because the thread was about unions. Though you're right.
|
| I think people who are really big "repeal citizens united"
| types need to realize that it cuts both ways.
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| It seems pretty clear the motivation here is that Instacart
| doesn't need/can't afford the workforce and is instead probably
| finding that store employees are able to fill the orders via some
| partnership with the big chains for a cut that is more margin
| efficient than hiring their own "shoppers" to do so.
|
| Also just generally this makes sense... a Safeway/Shoprite/Whole
| Foods employee can probably navigate and fill a cart faster than
| a random shopper who might not be as familiar with every store's
| layout. For Instacart this is a huge win, faster fulfillment and
| probably even higher accuracy of fulfilled orders. For chains
| this is also a great win since they can utilize their employees
| more, make a little extra off Instacart, and potentially even
| optimize their store layouts better to cater to this new style of
| shopping.
|
| Also the headline is quite misleading given that there are only
| TEN union workers... so "all of its union roles" is
| misrepresenting the whole thing a bit.
| jiofih wrote:
| [paywall]
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